local beach crabs in a reef tank

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Samw,

I appreciate you posting the regulations in this thread. You can only inform people. It's up to them to take it or leave it.

Anthony

[gobytron]

Originally Posted by Samw

Good god. Sorry for posting the regulations. The whole purpose of my posts were to respond to previous posts which deemed collection legal and others deeming them illegal with no references. Obviously jaywalking, speeding etc are obvious infractions. But I doubt that marine animal collection regulations were obvious. Thus, my references to the regulations. No where did I tell OP to do it or not to do it (never hinted that the regulations are the be/end all).

Was referring the the over all theme in this thread, rather than your post directly.

If you read over the whole thread, you will see that this is essentially the heart of this discussion, even before you posted the regulations.

The debate here has largely been hinged on the legality.

My point was that it is a much broader issue than simply legal or illegal but I also posted that it's good to know the rules.

[Samw]

Originally Posted by gobytron

Was referring the the over all theme in this thread, rather than your post directly.

If you read over the whole thread, you will see that this is essentially the heart of this discussion, even before you posted the regulations.

The debate here has largely been hinged on the legality.

My point was that it is a much broader issue than simply legal or illegal but I also posted that it's good to know the rules.

OK

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by gobytron

um, that's kind of what we do in this hobby.

You could argue that due to the extreme difference in temp, it's worse, but really, we are still all doing exactly this.

No need for a high horse.

+1 on this.

If all of us would really care about well being of the ocean critters we would never put them in the glass box.
If we would care about any animals for that matter we would not buy and eat meat or sea food.
Eating chicken, ducks, pigs and cows will support killing of these animals.
But where do we draw the line? its 500 shades of gray between black and white.

The problem is in the system, where people are slaves to the system, banks, and corporations.
Where people have to work for money. So people will make money by killing animals, because there are other people who will pay to eat them or to watch them die in the fish tank, Zoo or public aquarium.
It is all the same.

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by kengeroo

In any beach in the lower mainland there is an endless supply of little crabs...

years ago in my fish only SW tank I used to put them in there...

They seem to do fine...

Has anyone done this in a reef tank ????

those darn emerald crabs are pretty expensive... !!!!

shore crabs, shore hermit crabs and shore cone snails will do fine in reef tank.
More so, and better chance of survival if you collect during hot summer days and in tidal pools where temp is high and it will be easier for them to get used to your tank environment.
Don't worry too much about introducing different types of bacteria in your tank because its already a pool of bacteria in billions per ml.
Local crabs will not help you with bubble algae at all, well not in the amount you need anyway.

Survival in closed environment depends largely on the critter's immune system and less so on our tank husbandry.

As for the hitchhikers like worms etc its no different when you buy anything from J&L or any other local pet store.


I hope that this will answer your question little better than the above ideological debate.

[The Guy]

It's hard to believe this thread is being discussed "STILL". It's an easy answer "DON'T" do it!